An international team of whale experts thinks they may have found a new species of killer whales off the forbidding southern tip of Chile. They took some skin samples from the animals, which they called Type D killer whales, and are now studying their DNA to determine if they are indeed something new.
“Type D killer whales could be the largest undescribed animal left on the planet and a clear indication of how little we know about life on our oceans,” said Bob Pitman, a NOAA researcher from La Jolla, California, and a leader of the team.
The Type D whales have more rounded heads than other whales, with a narrower and more pointed dorsal fin, and a tiny white eyepatch. Pitman’s team took a video of them, which you can see below.
The first record of these different whales dates to 1955 when 17 of them were stranded on the coast of Paraparaumu, New Zealand. Then in 2005 a French scientist showed Pitman pictures of the same type of animal taken in the southern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles away from New Zealand. More recently, tourists have taken pictures of them near Antarctica.
A few months ago, the team of scientists left Ushuaia, Argentina, in search of the whales. After some storms and more than a week at anchor, about 30 of the animals approached the scientists’ boats, spending about three hours swimming nearby. At that time the scientists were able to gather a skin sample, which is now being analyzed. Read more, and see the video:
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/scientists-find-mystery-killer-whales-cape-horn-chile
